Three Seconds in Kazan, and the Gaps That Never Close

I remember sitting there, in that cramped rented room in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, when the clock struck two in the morning on June 15, 2026. Outside the window, the city was still awake — but the way it was awake was different from the way a sixteen-year-old stays awake to wait for a football match. I cannot recall the third goal France scored that night. To be honest, I had forgotten the exact score until I looked it up years later. What I remember, what carved itself into me like a thin blade, is a single moment that lasted exactly three seconds.

Kylian Mbappé, wearing the number ten shirt, then only nineteen years old, received the ball in midfield. He accelerated. Two Argentine defenders — strong, battle-hardened men — tried to keep pace with him, and in that instant, time seemed to stretch. Not faster. Slower. As if the match itself had agreed to pause for one beat, letting a nineteen-year-old boy write the first line of his life on the green turf. I scribbled into the small notebook I always carry with me: A star does not need the whole match — only three seconds to become poetry.

That was the day I stopped writing match reports by scoreline. That was the day I began keeping a journal of moments — recording the amplitude of movement, the furrowed brow, the breath, the silence before a shot. My first piece was titled "Mbappé's Three Seconds," and only on the final page did I reveal the result. Back then I did not know what genre I was writing. Now, at twenty-four, living and working as a documentary screenwriter in a city that is not my hometown, I understand that I was writing about something nobody taught: the gap.

But I am getting ahead of the story. Let me go back.

The Interrupted Summer and the Empty Turf

In 2026, all of Europe stopped breathing. The pandemic froze the world's biggest football leagues. Stadiums — places that once echoed with the roar of eighty thousand people — suddenly became absolute silence. I was eighteen, a first-year student, sitting in a different, smaller room, hearing clearly the sound of boots touching the ball, the panting of players, the goalkeeper's shout echoing between the four walls of empty stands.

In mid-May, the Bundesliga returned. The Ruhr derby between Dortmund and Schalke took place at Signal Iduna Park — a football cathedral with a capacity of over eighty thousand — and that night it was completely empty. I remember muting the commentary. Not because I did not want to hear people talk, but because I wanted to hear something else. I wanted to hear the ball roll. I wanted to hear the sound that is normally drowned by the roar of the crowd — the sound of something lonely, fragile, resisting the emptiness by the very fact of its existence.

That silence, at eighteen, was a gentle shock. It turned out that absence could also be a character. The empty stadium was like a poem with all its nouns crossed out — only the white space between the lines remained, and in that white space, I heard the longing of millions. That summer the turf was empty, yet every corner of the stands echoed with longing.

I wrote a piece titled "The Roll of the Ball in a Sleeping City." It was not shared as widely as a news bulletin, but it spread across student forums in the quiet way of things that touch a shared wound. A sports editor in Shenzhen messaged me: "This doesn't read like any sports piece I've ever read." I did not know whether that was praise or warning. Years later, I understood it was both.

Because this is the problem every sports writer faces: how to tell a story that is both truthful and moving, both grounded in what happens on the pitch and touching something beyond it. And in that interrupted summer, I learned that the gap is not something to be filled. It is something to be listened to.

Minute Forty-Two, and the Heart That Stopped

A year later, in the summer of 2026, I was a second-year student when I witnessed a moment that made the entire football world stop. In the group stage of the Euros, Denmark faced Finland at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen. In the forty-second minute, Christian Eriksen — number ten, the heart of an entire generation of Nordic players — collapsed in the middle of the pitch.

I watched live in my dormitory. My heart clenched. But outwardly, I sat still, as if I were still watching an ordinary match. That is the strange reaction of the body when facing something it cannot process: it chooses silence. The Danish players formed a circle around their teammate — a ring of men in red shirts, standing like a living wall, guarding the most fragile heartbeat in football. They did not chant. They said nothing. They simply stood. And in that standing, there was everything football could say about brotherhood without words.

Eriksen survived. The match continued. There were goals. But I do not remember the score. I only remember the red shirts rising in the middle of the pitch like a living wall, guarding the most fragile heartbeat in football. Minute 42 in Copenhagen, the heart stopped beating so that twenty-two others could beat in its place.

That line — "twenty-two others could beat in its place" — I wrote and rewrote many times. At first I wrote "twenty-two players," but the number was not enough. Then I wrote "twenty-two people," and it was still not enough, until I realized that the beating was not only of twenty-two people on the pitch, but of everyone watching. Of an entire stand. Of an entire planet. And of me too, in that silent dormitory room, with a heart beating faster than anyone on the turf.

Since then, every piece I write carries an extra layer of "life." I put the human being before the match. I write about scars, resurrection, and the gaze. My piece "The Protective Circle" went beyond sport — a communications lecturer called it "a new way of looking at football storytelling." And in that moment, I realized that documentary screenwriting was knocking on the door of my life.

Hakimi's Panenka — The Poem of the Underdog

In 2026, the World Cup was held in Qatar. I was twenty. This time, I did not build a script for Argentina or France — the two teams the whole world had already placed in the final in their imagination. I followed Morocco. A team nobody placed among the contenders. A team that, by every reasonable prediction, should have appeared in the group stage and gone home.

In the round of sixteen, Morocco faced Spain. They held a goalless draw for one hundred and twenty minutes, then entered the penalty shootout. This is where my memory froze into a single frame. All three of Spain's opening penalties failed — two hit the post, one was saved by goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, number one. And then Achraf Hakimi, number two, stepped up to the spot. Before him lay the suffocating pressure of a nation, a continent, a dream with no precedent. He took a Panenka — soft, slow, cold almost to the point of provocation, sending the ball floating into the very center of the goal while the goalkeeper dived the wrong way.

Morocco became the first African and Arab national team to reach the semifinals. They conceded exactly one goal in their first five matches — and that goal was an own goal against Canada. If you read only this number, you would think it was the result of a perfectly organized defense. But I, from my experience of following matches, understand that behind those dry numbers lies something else: an aesthetic manifesto.

Hakimi's Panenka was not a technically optimal solution. In the highest-pressure moment, when every player chooses the safest option — shoot hard, shoot into the corner — Hakimi chose the hardest thing mentally: shoot slowly, shoot into the center, and let that very slowness say everything. It was the act of a man who understood that, in football, there are moments when safety means fear. A well-timed contract is like a poem — not one word too many. And Hakimi's Panenka was so well-timed that it made people forget it could have failed.

I began writing player portraits by "personal signature." Hakimi's Panenka was an aesthetic manifesto under pressure, so I let personal style drive the story rather than the order of events. My series "The Quietly Defiant" on my blog became the draft for my 2026 graduation thesis. And in that series, I understood something I want to say to you, the reader of these lines: the romantic story of a small team defeating giants is always beautiful. But that beauty, if not illuminated by the truth of financial gaps and the reality of sustainable operations, becomes a sweet lie we reward ourselves with.

The Gap That Enthusiasm Cannot Fill

Let me say plainly what many who write about football and esports do not want to say, because it breaks the fairy tale they are selling.

The story of "the small town defeating the big spender" conceals a financial gap and a reality of sustainable operations that enthusiasm alone cannot fill. When you watch a match where the weak beat the strong, you see a moment. But behind that moment lies an ecosystem: academies, facilities, medical teams, data analysts, recruitment capacity, retention capacity, long-term investment. Those things do not appear in one magical evening. And the truth is, in most cases, the gap between a big club and a small club does not narrow after a shock win. It is merely temporarily hidden by emotion.

This is true of football. And it is many times truer of esports.

In esports, the operational gap is even harsher. A football club can exist for a hundred years, sustained by its local community, its tradition, the unmeasurable love of a city. An esports team can vanish within eighteen months if the investment stops flowing. No long history. No season tickets sold to three generations. No cathedral. Only a roster, a sponsorship contract, and a very short window to prove its value before the investor decides the game is no longer worth playing.

So when you hear the story of some small esports team reaching the final, enjoy the moment. But do not mistake the moment for the system. Do not mistake a Panenka for infrastructure. Because a Panenka, however beautiful, lasts one second. And the system — or the lack of it — lasts forever.

The Problem of Closed Leagues

And here is where I need to speak about a subject I have thought about a great deal, as someone who reports on esports for the Chinese market, where there are passionate audiences and the most complex ecosystems on the planet.

Women's esports leagues — if built as a closed ecosystem rather than an open competitive arena — will never produce truly great stars. This is not a judgment about the ability of female players. It is a judgment about structure.

Let me explain through the logic of esports itself, a discipline that is unforgiving of the superficial. In esports, a player's growth is measured by one thing: the quality of the opponents they face, and the frequency with which they face them. A player grows by being defeated. By losing matches they believed they would win. By facing players at the highest level, day after day, until that level no longer frightens them.

If you place a women's league in a closed ecosystem — where players only compete against each other, are protected from open competition, and are celebrated for achievements inside a small bubble — you create a serious paradox. You grant them stardom without giving them the chance to become true stars. You sell them safety, but what any competitive player needs is exposure.

Does this mean women's leagues should not exist? Quite the opposite. It means women's leagues should exist — but as an open competitive arena, where female players face the same challenges their male counterparts face. The same ranking system. The same quality of analysis. The same level of competition. The same brutal standards. Because when you lower the standard to protect someone, you do not respect them. You are implicitly saying they cannot meet the real standard. And that, in esports, is the subtlest insult of all.

True stars are not born in bubbles. They are born in fire. And fire does not distinguish by gender. Fire only burns those who dare to step into it.

Three Seconds Longer Than a Lifetime

Back to Kazan. I realized that Mbappé's three-second moment was not a short moment. It was a moment far longer than it appears, because it contained within it all the time of those who watched it.

I have spent eight years observing the sports and esports industry. Eight years — not a long time compared to a human life, but long enough to understand that a moment on the pitch does not exist in itself. It exists in the memory of the millions who witnessed it, and each of those memories makes that moment a little longer. Mbappé's three seconds, in my memory, have stretched across the sixteen years from when I first came to know football until now, and will keep stretching. Three seconds in Kazan stretch longer than a lifetime of fandom.

This is what data analysis cannot capture. You can measure Mbappé's speed. You can measure the distance he covered. You can measure the force of each stride. But you cannot measure the length that a person's memory magnifies when recalling that moment. You cannot measure the three seconds in the first second, the second second, the third second — and in all the years afterward, when someone sits in a dark room, closes their eyes, and sees that run again.

I think about this whenever I write about a significant moment. I remember that I am not writing for the person watching the match. I am writing for the person who will remember it. The person who will carry it through the years, and sometimes, on an ordinary afternoon with nothing special about it, will remember that there was a moment when their heart beat to someone else's rhythm. To that person, I have one duty: do not spoil the moment with excess words.

A Goal Is Where Time Stops Breathing

There is something strange about goals in football and scores in esports: both are moments when time stops.

In a football match, there are ninety minutes, plus stoppage time. Time flows evenly, ceaselessly, regardless of who is winning or losing. But when a goal comes, there is an interruption. Not an interruption of the clock — the clock keeps running. But an interruption of consciousness. In the instant a goal is scored, no one remembers time. Fans forget how long they have been sitting there. Players forget how far they have run. Parents forget how much they have worried. Only the heart, beating.

A goal is where time stops breathing, so that the heart can begin to speak. And when the heart begins to speak, it speaks in a language we all understand without learning. Shouts. Applause. Arms embracing each other. Sometimes tears. And in all these expressions, there is one common thing: complete presence. Human beings, in those moments, are no longer divided between past and future. They are here. Completely. Fully. Alive.

That is why I tell my students — students I do not actually have, because I do not teach, but the students in my imagination for whom I write — that if you want to understand sport, do not start by learning the rules. Start by learning to observe. Observation is not recording everything you see. Observation is knowing what to ignore. Knowing that in a match of thousands of events, only a few will survive in memory. And the writer's job is to find those events, before memory does it for them.

I think about this when I rewatch Hakimi's Panenka. The moment the ball leaves his foot, floats up, and falls slowly — in that frame, time does not stop breathing because of the goal. It stops breathing for another reason: because of the choice. Because a player, amid all the pressures of a history-defining moment, chose the hardest way. And that choice, not the result, is what made the moment.

About Replaced Coaches and Unreplaceable Memories

There is another thing I want to write about, because it has shaped how I see sport: People change, tactics change, but no one can change memory.

In football, changing coaches is a regular part of life. A team loses a few matches, the board loses patience, and one man leaves while another arrives. To those in the press room, this is a strategic decision. To those on the pitch, it is a change in life. To those in the stands, it is an event they will remember or forget, depending on whether it touched their heart.

I remember reading once about a coach in a small league. He was not famous. No one wrote books about him. But when he left the club, a group of supporters went to the airport to say goodbye, with just one banner bearing two words: "Thank you." That was all. No declaration of whether he was a legend. No declaration of whether he succeeded. Just two people, and one word. And in those two words lay everything a person working in sport could hope for: to be remembered.

In esports, this is more complicated still. A player can change teams within months, and the fans of the old team must choose between remembering and moving on. Some choose to remember. Some choose to move on. Neither choice is wrong. But that choice — between movement and memory — is the very soul of esports, a discipline where change is the only constant.

I have seen fans cry when their beloved player moved to another team. I have seen other fans chant the names of people they have never met, never known, but who have become part of their heart. And I understand that in both cases, they are doing the same thing: constructing memory. Because memory is not something you have ready-made. It is something you make, every time you love something enough.

Esports Has Its Own Stoppage Time

There is a line I often use when writing about esports: Esports has its own stoppage time — when the screen goes dark but the heart stays lit.

This is true literally and figuratively. Literally: when an esports match ends, the screen displays the result, the players stand up, and the world returns to its normal pace. But the fan's heart does not end that way. It keeps beating. It keeps feeling. It keeps carrying what happened in that match into daily life, into moments unrelated to the game, and sometimes, in some evening minute, it will remember a certain play and its rhythm will change.

Figuratively: esports, because it is played in a digital world, has a different relationship with time than football. In football, a match lasts ninety minutes and ends when the whistle blows. In esports, a match can last fifty minutes or two hours, depending on the game, and can be interrupted by technical factors — disconnections, server errors, unexpected incidents. Esports time does not flow evenly. It stretches. It can be pushed forward or pulled back. And in those stretches lies something very human: helplessness before what is beyond one's own control.

But there is one thing esports has that football does not: the ability to be replayed. A football match happens once and belongs forever to memory. An esports match can be rewatched, analyzed, taken apart into small pieces, and recreated under different conditions. This means memory in esports has a different quality. It is not just a frozen moment. It is a moment that can be opened, examined, and understood again. Memory can be revised.

I think this is very important for understanding why esports has a different emotional power than traditional sport. In football, you love a moment because you cannot have it again. In esports, you love a moment because you can return to it — but each time you return, you find something new, a detail you missed, a meaning you never understood before. The moment does not change. You change. And in that change, the moment becomes richer, more complex, and sometimes more painful.

When the Stands Are Empty but Every Corner Echoes with Longing

Back to the summer of 2026. Signal Iduna Park. Eighty thousand empty seats. The ball rolling.

I have written about this moment many times, and each time I try to grasp something new. Not because I want to say more. But because I want to understand more. Because that empty stadium taught me something I did not learn from any match with an audience: that the audience is not the people sitting in the stands. The audience is what makes the stands.

When you look at a stadium with eighty thousand people, you see eighty thousand individuals. But really, you are seeing a single organism: a mass of people with a shared heartbeat, a shared breath, a shared song. A stand is not seating. It is a living entity created by the people sitting there. When they leave, that entity does not disappear. It merely becomes invisible. And in that invisibility, it remains present — in the echo of a shout once shouted, in the memory of a goal once scored, in the space between seats where someone once sat.

That is why I say That summer the turf was empty, yet every corner of the stands echoed with longing. It is not a metaphor. It is a description. Because in silence, longing is heard more clearly than in roaring. When there is roaring, you do not need to remember. When there is none, you remember. You remember with an intensity you never feel when everything is happening. That is the greatest lesson the interrupted summer taught me: absence is not the negation of presence. It is another form of presence.

The Turf Is a Page, the Player Is a Stroke

I have written The turf is a page, the player is a stroke, the audience is the rhyme. And whenever I write this line, I ask myself again: if that is true, who is the reader?

The answer, I think, is: the reader is time. Not us. We are the ones living inside the story, feeling it, loving it. But the true reader, the one who understands it at the deepest level, is time. Time reads what happens on the turf and remembers it in a way we cannot. Time does not forget. We forget. But time records everything.

What does this mean for a writer like me? It means I do not write for the present. I write for time. I write for those who will reread my piece in ten years, in twenty years, and find in it something I never thought of. That is the humility every writer should have. We are not the ones who create meaning. We are only the ones who record what we see, and hope it will mean something to someone in the future.

In that capacity, I never offer absolute conclusions. I do not say "he is a legend." I do not say "this is the greatest goal." Because I do not know. And that not-knowing is precisely the space I want to leave for the reader. Meaning lies in what is unsaid. The secret lies in the gap. And the greatest truth about sport — about life — lies in what we cannot measure, cannot quantify, cannot package into a slogan.

About Keeping a Spark of Light

There is a temptation every writer who approaches sport with an artistic soul must face: the temptation of sorrow.

When you write about significant moments — about victory and defeat, about people rising and falling — you can easily slip into melancholy. Because every great moment contains a loss. A goal scored is a goal the other team did not score. One person's victory is another's defeat. And when you look at the bigger picture, you see that all glory is measured by fading. All light is defined by shadow.

But I learned that I must balance. I must leave a spark of light in every piece. Not because I fear the truth. But because the truth is not only shadow. The truth is also light. And a piece with only shadow is not the truth — it is half the truth, and half the truth, in this case, is also a form of lying.

So what can that spark be? It can be a small gesture. A player who does not chant after scoring, but simply stands and looks toward the stand where his family sits. A goalkeeper, after conceding, who does not bow his head but walks to pick the ball out of the net and places it back on the center spot, as if to say the match is not over. A fan, after a defeat, who still stands up and applauds their team. These small moments do not appear on the scoreboard. But they are the reason we keep watching. They are the reason we keep loving.

I think the most important spark in sport is not victory. It is perseverance. When everyone has turned their back, when the scoreboard no longer favors you, when everyone has said you should stop — and you keep walking. That is the spark. And that is what I try to find in every match I watch, every story I write, every person I learn about.

About What to Preserve When Writing

There is a responsibility that sports writers rarely speak of: the responsibility not to spoil what is being written.

Sport is one of the areas where human beings come into contact with their emotions at their most primal level. On an ordinary afternoon, a person can experience their greatest joy in weeks. Then, in the next match, they can experience their greatest sorrow. Nothing protects them from these extremes. And when they move from this experience to writing, when they read what we write about it, our responsibility is the accuracy of emotion, not the accuracy of event.

The accuracy of event can be achieved by looking it up. What was the score, who scored, in what minute. Those things are available. But the accuracy of emotion — that is a different responsibility. When you write about a man who wept after a defeat, you must understand why he wept. You must feel that pain, not describe that pain. You must live inside it. If you cannot do that, you are writing about an event you did not truly witness.

This is why I always write in the first person when I write about significant moments. Not because I am important. But because I want you to know I was there. I was in the dark room, with a heart beating to the rhythm of a football match. I am not standing outside looking in. I am inside. And when you read, I want you inside with me. Together with me. Like friends sitting on the same stand, sharing a moment that cannot be put into words.

Sixteen Years Old, and a Notebook

I still keep the notebook I used that night in Kazan. It is worn, its spine frayed, a few pages stained. But in it is a line written in Vietnamese, trembling: "A star does not need the whole match — only three seconds to become poetry."

I was sixteen when I wrote that. Now I am twenty-four. Eight years have passed. I have changed a great deal. I left Vietnam, came to China, studied international communication, and became a documentary screenwriter. I have written hundreds of pieces about sport and esports. I have learned to analyze data, understand meta, read tactical maps, and talk to people in the industry at a professional level. I have grown in ways that sixteen-year-old boy could not have imagined.

But when I reread that line, I understand that I have not changed the most important thing. I still believe the moment matters more than the match. I still believe emotion matters more than statistics. I still believe three seconds can be longer than a lifetime. And I still believe the writer's job — the true job of the writer — is not to record everything that happened. It is to find, among thousands of events, the single one that will make someone, on some evening years later, feel that they are not alone.

That is why I write. Not to become famous. Not to be recognized. But so that someone, somewhere, in a moment of an ordinary day, finds in my piece a line, a passage, a feeling that makes them feel another person on this planet understands what they are feeling. And in that understanding, there is a small comfort. A comfort that sport gave me, and that I am trying to give back.

About Those Who Guard the Gate of Life

I think about the people in this profession — not just writers, but everyone working in sport and esports. Tournament organizers. Camera operators. Hosts. Coaches. Scouts. The people sitting at the assistant's desk, making sure the tournament runs on time.

I think about them because I was once one of them. I began my career as an esports athlete and tournament organizer, before moving into communications. I know the feeling of standing backstage, looking up at the screen, knowing everything could collapse at any second. I know the feeling of racing against time to fix a technical fault before millions of viewers notice. I know the feeling when everything goes smoothly and no one notices — and in that not-noticing lies a quiet pride.

These people do not appear on television. They have no fans. They do not score, do not create the moments that will be remembered in the memory of millions. But without them, there would be no moment to remember. They are the gatekeepers of sport's life. And in their own very particular way, they too are screenwriters — not with words, but with their work. They create the space for moments to happen. And that, to me, is a far nobler work than merely recording what happened.

I think about them every time I see a match start on time. Every time I see a slow-motion replay highlight a moment the naked eye cannot see. Every time I see a post-match interview mine a real emotion. And I understand that sport is not an event. It is an ecosystem. A giant living organism created by thousands of people working in the dark, so that a single moment can light up.

About the Gap as a Character

There is one thing I have never stopped writing about, and perhaps never will: the gap.

In my writing career, the gap has become a character. It is not merely absence. It is a presence in another form. An empty stadium has a presence. A moment that never happened has a presence. A player who has left has a presence. A tournament that was cancelled has a presence. And in all these cases, the gap is not something to be filled. It is something to be noticed.

I learned this from the writers I admire, who understand that silence is part of music, that white space is part of a painting, that the unsaid is part of what is said. But I also learned this from sport — from the moments I have witnessed. From the empty Signal Iduna Park. From the months without football during the pandemic. From the fans who were not allowed into the stadium but still sang from outside. From the moments when a player sat down on the pitch and wept, and in that sitting there was more than any commentary could say.

I think this is why I keep writing. Not because I have much to say. But because I want to record the things unsaid — the memory of those who watched, the breath of those who waited, the silence of those who understood. I want to make the gap tangible, not to fill it, but so it is not forgotten.

About the Game of the Quietly Defiant

There is a concept I developed over the years, and I want to share it with you here: the quietly defiant.

In sport, we often think of defiance as loud. A player throws his shirt to the ground. A coach criticizes the referee in a press conference. A team refuses to shake hands with an opponent. These actions draw attention, and in a sense, they are acts of defiance. But they are not truly acts of defiance. Because they are performed to be seen. And when an action is performed to be seen, it is no longer defiance. It is performance.

The quietly defiant are different people. They do not speak. They do not chant. They do not post on social media. They simply do what they believe is right, in the way they believe is right, and let the result speak for them. Hakimi's Panenka was an act of quiet defiance. In a moment when everyone expected him to do the safe thing, he did the beautiful thing. In a moment when everyone expected him to choose certainty, he chose the hardest way. And he did not explain. He did not declare. He simply did. And the ball flew into the net.

In esports, I have seen these quietly defiant people everywhere. Players who choose a tactic no one trusts, and win with it. Coaches who choose a roster no one understands, and turn it into a weapon. Small teams that refuse to play the way the big teams expect, and create a style of their own. These people do not make noise. But they change the game. Because they do not try to change it with words. They change it by living inside it in their own way.

I think this is what I try to be in my work. Not a loud writer. Not a writer of declarations. But a quiet writer, who merely asks the right questions, and lets the reader stand up on their own. Because real change does not come from what we shout. It comes from what we quietly do, every day, until it becomes undeniable.

About Those Who Will Read This in Ten Years

I write this piece for you, the reader reading these lines in a present moment. But I also write for another version of you — the one who will read it in ten years, when World Cups have passed through many seasons, when the players I write about have retired or moved into other roles, when the teams I mention have changed beyond recognition.

I write for you, that future version, because I believe this is what sport does best: it connects us to our own past and future. When you reread a piece about a match you watched ten years ago, you are not just reading about that match. You are reading about the person you were when you watched it. You are reading about what you felt, what you hoped, what you feared. And in that reading, you realize that a football match is never just a football match. It is a milestone on the road of your life.

I hope this piece will be such a milestone for someone. Not because it records important events. But because it records emotions someone experienced. And when you reread it in ten years, I hope you will realize those emotions are still there. They have changed. They have matured. But they have never disappeared. And in the persistence of those emotions lies a truth about human beings I want you to remember: we do not forget what has touched our hearts. We only learn to carry it with us in different ways.

About the Turf as a Place to Return To

I have been to many places. I have lived in Vietnam, and now I live in China. I have watched football in small rented rooms, in student dormitories, in crowded cafes, and once, in an actual stadium. But wherever I am, wherever I watch, one thing never changes: when the match begins, I come home.

The turf is the place I return to. Not because it is familiar. But because it is where everything else pauses. When I watch a football match, I am no longer Bui Long, the immigrant in Shenzhen, the one who has to worry about work and life and money. I am a fan, sitting on an invisible stand, sharing a moment with millions of others around the world. And in that moment, I am not alone.

This is why I write about sport. Not because I want to become an expert. Not because I want recognition. But because I want to share that feeling of coming home with others. I want to say to you, the reader somewhere in the world, that I know how you feel. I know you stayed up late to watch a match you might have missed. I know you shouted when your team scored. I know you went silent when they lost. And I know that in all those moments, you were not just watching a match. You were living. You were feeling. You were being yourself.

About a Quiet Faith in Sport

There is a question I have asked myself many times: why do we love sport? Why do we spend thousands of hours watching people we do not know, playing a game we cannot influence, on a turf we may never have set foot on?

I think the answer lies in the fact that sport is one of the few places where human beings come into contact with their emotions without needing a reason. You do not have to explain why you cry when your team loses. You do not have to justify your joy when your team wins. That emotion needs no reason other than itself. And in a world where everything else demands a reason — you must explain why you are sad, why you are happy, why you do this or that — sport is a space of freedom.

I believe in sport. Not as a solution to the world's problems. That would be naive. But as a space for human experience in its purest form. In a football match, a person can safely experience emotions they are not allowed to experience in daily life. They can cry. They can shout. They can hug a stranger. They can love someone they have never met. And all of this is fine. All of it is accepted. All of it is part of the experience.

This is my quiet faith. I do not speak of it on social media. I do not shout about it. I simply write about it, every day, in my own way. And I hope that in my writing, you will find a reflection of your own faith. Not because I am right. But because we all believe in something, and sport is where we can believe without having to prove it.

About the Final Moment

And then, when all these thoughts have been written out, I return to the first moment. Kazan. Two in the morning. A sixteen-year-old boy. Mbappé's three seconds.

I do not remember the result of that match. I do not remember the names of the two Argentine defenders who tried to keep pace but failed. I do not remember the post-match commentary, or the tactical analyses, or the numbers. All of that has dissolved in my memory, swallowed by time, like every other event in my life.

But those three seconds remain. They are still there, in the notebook, in my memory, in every piece I have written since. And I understand that what matters is not what I remember. What matters is what I chose to remember. Because memory is not a faithful record of events. Memory is a choice. Every day, we choose what to remember and what to forget. And in that choice, we shape who we are.

I choose to remember three seconds. Not because they are more important than any other three seconds of my life. But because they are the three seconds that taught me sport is not a game. It is a way for human beings to connect with each other. A way for human beings to connect with themselves. A way for us, in an increasingly complex and fragmented world, to find a brief moment of completeness.

And perhaps that is all sport needs to do: give us a moment. Give us a moment when time stops breathing, and in that moment, we are part of something larger than ourselves. Something we cannot put into words. Something we can only feel with the heart.

And Tomorrow

Tomorrow, there will be another football match. There will be another player accelerating through midfield. There will be another goalkeeper falling, and another teammate running to help him up. There will be another fan shouting as the ball flies into the net. There will be another person crying when the match ends. And I, once again, will sit before the screen, with a notebook beside me, recording the small moments that will become large in someone's memory.

This work never ends. Because sport never ends. Every match is a beginning. Every season is a new chapter. Every moment is a chance to understand something again about human beings. And I, the recorder of moments, will keep recording. Will keep seeking beauty in ordinary things. Will keep believing that three seconds can be longer than a lifetime.

The turf is a page, the player is a stroke, the audience is the rhyme. And tomorrow, as every day, new pages will be written. New strokes will be drawn. New rhymes will be made. And I will be there, with my notebook, recording every moment — because I believe a recorded moment is a moment saved from oblivion. And in that saving, there is something very beautiful. Something very human. Something forever worth writing.

So, when you finish reading this piece — if you have read this far, and I thank you for that — I have one thing to ask you. Not a big question. Just a small one. What was your moment? What moment changed the way you look at a match, a player, a part of your life? Because I believe each of us has our own three seconds. A moment when time stopped breathing. And I hope that, by writing about my moment, I have helped you find yours.

As for me, I will keep being here. Keep writing. Keep recording. Keep believing that in a world where everything changes at breakneck speed, there are things that remain forever — moments, emotions, memories. And those things, however small, deserve to be remembered. Deserve to be written down. Deserve to be shared with another person, in another place, in another moment.

Because in the end, sport is not about what happens on the pitch. It is about what happens in the hearts of those who watched. And each of those hearts, each of those moments, each of those three seconds — they never end. They only continue, from one person to another, from one generation to another, connecting us in something larger than all of us. And that, to me, is the most beautiful thing sport can do.